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Greek word · Strong G141

What does heretic mean?

Heretic comes from the Greek hairetikos, from hairesis, “choice”: someone who picks his own way and divides the community over it. The word appears only once in the Bible: “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject” (Titus 3:10).

αἱρετικός

hairetikós · transliteration

In Strong’s lexicon
a schismatic
In the King James
  • heretick1
Appears in
1 verse

See the full G141 entry →Also in the lexicon: G139 αἵρεσις

The meaning of heretic in the Bible

Hairesis means choice, and in New Testament times it was the ordinary word for a party or school: “the sect of the Sadducees” (Acts 5:17), “the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5). In that sense the Christians themselves were called a hairesis: Paul tells the governor Felix that he worships the God of his fathers “after the way which they call heresy” (Acts 24:14).

In the letters the word takes on the weight of division: heresies are among the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20), and Peter warns that false teachers “shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them” (2 Peter 2:1). A heretic, in Titus, is someone who keeps dividing the church after being corrected twice — “he that is such is subverted” (Titus 3:11). Today's sense, someone who denies an essential doctrine of the faith, grew out of these texts in the history of the Church.

Where heretic appears

Titus 3:10-11

A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
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2 Peter 2:1

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
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Galatians 5:20

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
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Acts 24:14

But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:
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Acts 5:17

Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
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Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a heretic and an apostate?
A heretic divides or distorts the faith from within; an apostate abandons it. The Greek apostasia appears in 2 Thessalonians 2:3: “that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first”.
What does the Bible say to do with a heretic?
Warn him once and again, and if he persists in dividing, reject him — stop giving him a place in the community (Titus 3:10-11). Correction comes before separation.

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